Third Strike

by Kathi Daley

  “I understand Coach Cranston showed up at the party as well.”

  Hudson nodded. “That was pretty weird. Trey had told him he was going with another agent a couple of days before, and everyone knew Cranston was royally pissed off. I’m not sure why he came, unless it was to meet Jett.”

  “Jett?”

  “Yeah. I saw the two of them talking. They seemed to be cooking something up, but I’m not sure what. Cranston didn’t stay long and I didn’t notice that he ever approached Trey, but then again, I wasn’t watching him, so I suppose they might have talked. I was just glad there wasn’t some big confrontation between them. When I saw the coach come in, I was afraid they might end up in a fight. They both tended to use their fists when they were mad.”

  Jack sat back and crossed his legs. “So you’re saying Coach Cranston hit his players?”

  “No. Not his players. But Trey wasn’t his player anymore. He was an adult, so I’m assuming he’d be fair game in Cranston’s eyes.”

  “Does Cranston have a history of violence?” Jack asked.

  Hudson shrugged. “Sure, I guess. Or at least he did. I heard he had to take anger management classes after he got into a scuffle with another coach in a bar and had a bit too much to drink.”

  “There’s a theory out there that Trey’s drink was spiked without his knowledge at the party and didn’t intend to take the drugs that eventually led to his death.”

  “Oh, that’s a fact,” Hudson said to Jack. “No way Trey would take drugs the night before a game. That game in Charleston was a big deal to him. I could barely even get him to take a drink at the party.”

  Jack took out his notebook, pen in hand. “Who do you think spiked Trey’s drink?”

  Hudson frowned. “I don’t rightly know, but if you’re asking me to guess, I’d say you should look at Jett. I was there when Trey died. I had a good seat right behind home plate and it seemed to me that while everyone else was scurrying around, trying to help Trey, Jett was standing off to the side, smiling.”

  “Smiling?”

  “That’s what I said. Now, I don’t know for sure he was the one who killed Trey. There were others who benefited from his death as well, but if you’re asking me to guess, that’s who I’d say. If you do find out for sure who spiked Trey’s drink, you be sure to let me know. Trey was my best friend, which means the son of a bitch who killed him and I have some business to attend to.”

  Jack thanked Hudson for his time and we left. I realized that if we did manage to identify the person who’d drugged Trey, we should probably give Deputy Savage a heads-up that Hudson might just cause them bodily harm.

  “What did you think?” I asked Jack when we were in the car.

  “I’m not sure. Hudson didn’t say anything we didn’t already know, except for the fact that Cranston had been known to have a temper and Jett seemed happy when Trey went down, but I could see he was choosing his words carefully. Almost as if he planned what he was going to say or, more importantly, not say. He knows something he’s not saying.”

  “Seems like they all do.”

  Jack nodded. “Yeah. It does at that. At this point, based on what we know, I’d have to add Hudson to the not-a-suspect list, and Jett’s a suspect.”

  “I thought we weren’t going to add people to the suspect list until we spoke to them,” I pointed out.

  “I thought about that some more. I think we need to categorize everyone. We can move folks around later.”

  “Okay, so we have Coach Cranston and Jett on the suspect list and Heather and Hudson on the not-a-suspect one. Where should we place the others?”

  “Hudson seemed to think Rena was okay with the fact that Trey was going to dump her, but I’m not so sure. I’d keep her on the suspect list for now and I’d add Candy, given what Clara said yesterday.”

  “So we have Coach Cranston, Rena, Candy, and Jett on the suspect list and Heather and Hudson on the not-a-suspect list so far.”

  “Yes. Until Alex speaks to Dexter, Parker, and Quinn, and we track down Portia, I say we leave them on the maybe list until we get a feel for where they stand or new information becomes available.” Jack glanced at his phone. “We have over an hour before we meet with Candy. Should we grab a bite?”

  “Maybe something light. I want to call Alex. I think he planned to meet with Parker and Quinn yesterday. I’m interested to find out how that went. Maybe he’ll have enough information to move them off the maybe list and onto one of the others.”

  “Let’s just grab coffee, then. We can have lunch after we talk to Candy.”

  Jack and I ordered our coffee to go, then settled on a bench lining one of the public beaches. I pulled out my phone and called Alex, who answered after the second ring.

  “Hey, Jill,” he greeted me. “I was just about to call you.”

  “Do you have news?”

  “I spoke to both Parker and Quinn yesterday and wanted to fill you in on that, as well as get an update on anything you may have gathered.”

  “So far Jack and I have spoken to Coach Cranston, Heather Granger, and Hudson Dickerson. Based on those conversations, we’ve started assigning our suspects to one of three lists.” I explained who we’d assigned to which list and why. Alex had several questions, most of which we didn’t have answers for yet. Once we’d discussed the interviews Jack and I had conducted, we moved on to Alex’s with Parker and Quinn.

  “They were at the party as Rena Madison’s guests,” Alex said, confirming what Hudson had just told us. “Apparently, not only were Parker and Trey teammates but Quinn and Rena were good friends as well. According to Parker, he didn’t get along all that well with Trey because he totally grabbed the spotlight, leaving Parker hidden in his shadow, even though he was a damn good ball player in his own right. He swears that although he wasn’t a fan of Trey’s, he’d accepted his lot and was focusing his sights on making a name for himself after he went pro. I didn’t get the sense that Parker did anything to prevent Trey from playing in the charity game. Based on my impression of him as a person, I think we can move him to the not-a-suspect list.”

  “Okay. And Quinn?”

  “Quinn is another thing entirely. Although Trey has been dead for over a year and Parker was drafted to a Major League team, it was clear she still held a grudge against him because she feels he robbed Parker of the college career he should have had. She didn’t have anything nice to say about Trey; in fact, she spent quite a lot of time telling me what a lowlife loser he was, and how he not only stole Parker’s thunder but the thunder of the entire team. She insisted he was only in it for himself and wasn’t a team player. She was also angry that Trey was planning to dump Rena before he died. She wasn’t shy about telling me Trey got what he deserved, but she swore she wasn’t the one who drugged him.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Actually, I do. She was very forthright in her anger. I didn’t get the feeling at any point in our conversation that she was holding back or lying. While I think Quinn was angry enough to want to do harm to Trey, my gut tells me that she isn’t the one who spiked the drink. If the drink was even spiked; we don’t know for a fact that it was, and I’m not sure we’ll ever be certain unless we find someone who knows exactly what occurred and is willing to admit it.”

  “I guess you’re right. For now, let’s just move Parker to the not-a-suspect list and leave Quinn as a maybe. Were you able to get in touch with either Rena or Dexter?” I asked.

  “I spoke to Dexter on the phone. I’m heading north later in the morning and plan to meet with him this afternoon. I’m hoping to hear back from Rena as well. Either way, I should be back in time for the group meeting. By then, I hope we’ll have enough information to narrow things down so we can focus on trying to prove what happened.”

  “What about Jett?” I asked. “He seems like a strong suspect, but I’m not sure how we’re going to track him down if he isn’t in Florida.”

  “I have some feelers out. We’ll find him.”


  “Okay, great. See you when you get back.”

  I hung up and filled Jack in on the parts of the conversation he wasn’t able to follow. “It looks like Quinn and Dexter are the only two left on the maybe list, but Alex should have a better feel for where he falls by the end of the day.”

  “What about Portia?” Jack asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about her. Do we even know if she’s still on the island?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe Candy will. Let’s add her to the maybe list for now.”

  ******

  Unlike Hudson, who seemed happy to talk to us, Candy greeted us with a look of mistrust. She began the interview by reminding us that she only had a few minutes, and despite Jack’s attempts to charm her, she wouldn’t smile or even look us in the eye. Her answers were carefully considered, the information she was willing to share both sparse and guarded.

  Jack started off by asking her about her friendship with Heather, then segued into questions regarding Hudson and her relationship as a couple with Trey and Heather. While she was a lot more closemouthed in her responses than Heather had been, the information she shared ran along similar lines.

  “I understand Trey’s girlfriend, Rena, was at the party the night before Trey died,” Jack said.

  The comment appeared to make Candy mad, which seemed to loosen her self-control quite a bit. “She shouldn’t have been there. The party was for Trey’s Gull Island friends, to celebrate his accomplishments. Trey wasn’t thinking right when he invited his college friends. If you ask me, their being there ruined the whole thing.”

  “It seemed Heather handled the fact that Rena was with Trey better than could have been expected.”

  Candy shrugged. “Heather didn’t want to seem petty. She put on a good face, but I know it hurt her that he brought another girl. He wasn’t even planning to stay with her, so I don’t know why he bothered to bring her to the island and introduce her to his friends. In fact, once he introduced her around, I don’t think he spoke to her the whole night.”

  “Who did Trey hang out with?” Jack asked.

  “Hudson and some of the other guys from the high school group. They were drinking and having a good ol’ time, which, given the circumstances, didn’t sit quite well with me.”

  “Circumstances?” I asked.

  “Trey was going to leave Gull Island for good. He was going to ruin everything.”

  “Surely you knew he was headed for the Major League.”

  Candy shrugged. “Things happen. Plans don’t always work out. Trey wouldn’t have been happy living in some big city, far away from everyone who loved him. He might have been disappointed at first if the baseball thing didn’t work out, but in the end, he would have been happier staying right here on the island.”

  I glanced at Jack, who was hiding a frown. He paused before asking the next question.

  “We know Trey died due to the drug mixture that was in his system, combined with the extreme stress that may have been brought on by such an intense game. We’ve heard Trey might have been slipped the drugs rather than knowingly ingesting them.”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard that.”

  “Why do you think someone would slip drugs to Trey?”

  Candy shrugged. “Can’t say as I rightly know. Are we done now? I need to get back to work.”

  Jack nodded. “Yes, we’re done for now, but we may have additional questions as our investigation continues. Would it be all right if we called you should we feel the need to speak again?”

  “I really don’t know anything and I’m a very busy person. Besides, it seems to me you ought to let Trey rest in peace. It was a terrible thing, what happened to him, and stirring things up again is only going to create a hardship for those who loved him.”

  “If Trey was murdered, don’t you want to see his killer identified?” I asked.

  “Don’t see what good that would do. He’s gone and there’s nothing anyone one can do about it now. I really do need to git.”

  Jack offered her a smile. “Thank you for speaking to us.”

  Candy returned to work and Jack and I headed to his car. We decided to have lunch at Gertie’s, so he headed in that direction when we left the grocery store where she worked.

  “Candy seemed to have a rather unrealistic concept of how things were going to work out with Trey,” Jack said as he pulled onto the main road.

  “Yeah. She really did seem to have latched on to the perfect-life dream she’d hatched up with Heather. I wonder if she wasn’t the one to slip Trey the drink so he’d get sick, miss the game, fail to be drafted, and stay on the island.”

  “Missing one game wouldn’t have prevented Trey from being drafted,” Jack pointed out.

  “You and I realize that, but Candy seems to be somewhat delusional. Maybe she really thought she could create a situation where he would come back to the island and get back together with Heather, and everything would return to the way it was supposed to be.”

  “Yeah, maybe. We should definitely keep her on the suspect list.”

  “I know Alex wants to figure this whole thing out, but there were a lot of people at that party who seemed to have both motive and opportunity to put the drugs in Trey’s drink, if that’s what happened. I’m beginning to think we may not be able to do it without a confession or someone who saw what happened and will talk about it.”

  “This is a tough case,” Jack agreed. “I guess all we can do is try to narrow things down a bit. If Trey’s drink was drugged, at least one person knows about it. If we ask enough questions, that person may let something slip.”

  “Yeah, maybe. If nothing else, I feel as if our interviews are giving me a clearer understanding of who Trey was as a person. Gertie has lived here a long time and seems to know most folks. Let’s ask her opinion of the people on our lists—at least the ones who lived on the island. I’ve found she has a pretty good feel for who people are at their core.”

  Chapter 7

  Gertie’s was packed with the lunch crowd when we got there, so Jack and I hadn’t had a chance to pick Gertie’s brain, but I did drop off a copy of the photo of the young couple, and I mentioned I might be back at some point to ask her a few questions. Once we left the café, Jack dropped me off at the resort so I could pick up Blackbeard and my car in anticipation of my visit with Garrett. I’d made a point of bringing the bird to see Garrett at least once a week since I’d been on the island because I knew how very much those visits meant to them.

  “Man overboard, man overboard,” Blackbeard said the minute he saw Garrett approaching us in his wheelchair.

  I was glad Blackbeard had found his voice and to see the smile on Garrett’s face too. I hoped spending some time with Garrett would bring Blackbeard out of his slump.

  “How ya doin’, big guy?” Garrett asked as I released my hold on the bird and allowed him to fly onto his shoulder.

  “Not a hitter, not a hitter.”

  Garrett looked at me with a question on his face. “Have you been watching baseball movies with Blackbeard?”

  “No. We’ve been investigating Trey Alderman’s death, though, and Blackbeard has been listening in on our discussions.”

  “Investigating his death? Thought that case was closed.”

  “It is, but Alex is writing a book about Trey’s baseball career and the circumstances surrounding his death.”

  “Man overboard, man overboard.”

  Garrett glanced at Blackbeard. “Yes, I’m afraid so. Trey collapsed just like I did when I had my stroke. I was lucky and pulled through, but poor Trey wasn’t so lucky. It’s a shame what happened. Kid was definitely too young to have a heart attack.”

  “The consensus is that there were drugs in Trey’s system that, when combined with the stress of a close game, resulted in heart failure. So far, we have conflicting reports as to whether Trey took the drugs voluntarily or they were slipped in his drink without his knowledge. To be honest, I’m of the opinion that unless someone who
knows what really went down and is willing to talk about it, it’s possible we won’t be able to solve this one. Still, we owe it to Alex to give it our best shot. I’m hoping we can wrap it up before the holiday. Which reminds me: I’m making Thanksgiving dinner and would love for you to join us if you feel up to it.”

  “I’d like that very much. I haven’t been home since my stroke. I’m anxious to see what you’ve done with the place.”

  I smiled. “And I’m anxious to show you everything. I think the cabins came out really well. Six are finished and three more are underway and should be done after the first of the year. I’ve had a lot of interest from writers wanting to rent the cabins on a weekly basis. I’d prefer longer-term residents, but I suspect there aren’t that many looking for a more permanent living arrangement, so I’m thinking of advertising short-term rentals in January.”

  “I know short-term rentals seem like a lot of work, but I think after you get into a routine, you’ll find there are benefits. But it’s totally up to you. I want you to consider the resort your own.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that, but you still own the resort and I very much welcome your opinion. As for Thanksgiving, I’ll have Jack pick you up on his way out to the resort. He has a truck he doesn’t drive all that often, but it’ll work perfectly to transport your wheelchair. Now that you’re doing better, we should arrange for you to visit more often.”

  “No place like home, no place like home.”

  Garrett chuckled. “I spoke to my doctor about that when I was at the hospital having those tests. He thinks if I continue to progress the way I have, I may be able to consider physical therapy as an outpatient.”

  I was surprised but happy to hear it. “Are you thinking of moving back to the resort?”

  Garrett hesitated. “The idea has crossed my mind, although I’ll never be able to run it again. The doctor said I’ll always need a certain amount of help, so living alone probably isn’t in the cards. But living at the resort, where there are others to help me with meals and transportation, could very well be an option. Having said that, I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.”